


Freedom in Ink

by Cicileal



Series: Ashes to Ashes [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Books, Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Growing Up, Library, Mentions of James, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 09:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16595216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cicileal/pseuds/Cicileal
Summary: The Lone Wanderer learns that everyone dies in the vault. And that sometimes freedom is just in the stories we read.





	Freedom in Ink

At first, the crying was nothing to Ashton, just soft whimpers that would lull him to sleep on his most restless nights. He would stay up as late as he possibly could, in the vault's library, reading and learning the theories his dad always spoke to Jonas, learning the stories people from before had to tell. He would care for the books, learning the best ways to protect the yellowing pages from fading and clean the covers without causing damage to the printed pictures. They were delicate and he learned the best ways to treat them, the old woman taught him that. But even more so he learned the art of loving stories. 

Instead of sorting them into the shelves they were supposed to be tucked into, he would sneak them in his shirt, and in his messenger past the eyes of the overseer, and his father, to the room he could find privacy in. Reading in the long nights when his dad stayed in the clinic with one patient or another. He didn’t consider it stealing since he always knew that he would eventually return the books, and believed in some way, they were payment for the hours he would spend helping the old woman sort them. Though sometimes he would keep them for months, rereading them, and the passages he learned to love. 

The old woman knew of his habits. He never learned her name but knew her by the way her voice danced with words she would read when no one, but the two of them, was in the library. Knew her from the way he fingers delicately held the pages as though a single misstep would leave the story forever lost to history. Her name didn’t matter to him, it was her who mattered. 

She was kind to him, the way the others weren’t, where they would scowl and gossip, she smiled and praised, where they hated him for something he never understood, she loved him for the things he was. She was the stories he loved, and the place he was safe, she was something he needed. But above all, she believed in him

 

She had caught him when he had been surrounded by old science and math textbooks, it wasn’t that the textbooks were what he was interested in, no, they had been there simply for his father, trying to win his pride through complex mathematical and scientific theories that fourteen-year-olds shouldn’t know, that he would know, but he found that halfway through reading A History of Vector Analysis, his eyes started to drift to the name Samuel Beckett on one of the books he had finished sorting. 

He shouldn’t read it. He had so many other responsibilities, a test that he needed to pass, and the theories he promised himself he would finish reading. He needed to finish sorting the old woman’s books and needed to go to some meeting with his dad and the Overseer. Then there was the fact he was sure that the works by Samuel Beckett had   
banned by the Overseer, and reading something he wasn’t supposed to was a great way to get his ass handed to him. 

He reached for the book. He had a million reasons not to and a million reasons why he wanted to. But he couldn’t resist himself this. Fuck the textbooks and the Overseer and his damned policies. He spent the rest of the time reading the play The Unnamable, coming up with the voices he thought would fit the ramblings. 

The old woman watched, between the spaces where books were absent. Maybe it was because she had never seen anyone so interested in the works of Beckett, or how he was so human to submit to his desire, to read the book. But she didn’t bother him, didn’t notice when he saw her from below the pages of the book.

 

Ashton never confronted her about it, found himself grateful that she allowed him to sneak the book back to the common room, and found himself smiling at the fact that she was the one who had convinced the Overseer to keep the books he had said were bad. Even found himself grateful that his dad, had been working later than usual. 

Ashton stayed up that night, the green glow of his pip-boy light on the old pages with and their old smells, simply reading plays, and stories, and poems. Losing himself in the worlds he didn’t belong to, the places he would never visit, and imagining a world where the monsters had stayed dormant in their metal cages and allowed people to rule beyond the metal vault door. 

Eventually, he finished the book, setting it down, and grabbing a pen and notepad to write his own stories, his own fantasies, where he lived in a world of freedom and air. It was fiction, after all, why couldn’t he?

 

He had expected the old woman to say something the next time they met, expected her to tell the Overseer, or fire him from the unofficial job he had, but she did no such thing. He thought that she was dragging it out, taking one more day of his labor before putting the cap on it, and letting him leave with nothing besides a broken yearning to find the world's he had last night. But she didn’t, and when the lights of the library began to dim, and the alarm to notify the coming of curfew went off, she said nothing. He waited, even though he knew he wouldn’t make it back in time, just to allow her the chance to say something, but nothing. 

Then he went up to her, taking the book from under his shirt and slamming it on the table. The old woman didn’t flinch, didn’t even look up from the log book she had been working on, she was utterly unaffected. He spoke as gently and as softly as he could.

 

“I brought your book back.” 

 

She looked up. He slid the book across the table. 

 

“‘My’ book?” 

 

“Yah. I took it.”

 

“You took it?” He cast his eyes down to the cover, the golden letters, glaring past the silky cover. The fluorescent vault light reflecting so that he couldn’t read the praise the book had earned. 

 

“I… I just wanted to read it.”

 

“You’re returning it?” 

 

“Yah, I know but I just…. I just had to take it. I don’t know why. I just did.” He pushed the book further forward. And finally when it was nearly at the edge of the desk, she took it, looking at the golden letters herself.

 

“You borrowed it.”

 

He thought about it, her tone. It wasn’t repetition, of the things she had said before, but a closing statement, that left the door open for him to leave, to take whatever stories he wanted, to read. But he couldn’t believe it, that someone was so kind to let have this, to let him run free past the rules that had been meticulously crafted his entire life, to rebel, with the printed words on the pages of a book.

 

“I borrowed it.” She didn’t look up, just down at the cover. 

 

“This book hasn’t been read since I was a child…” He looked up at this, at her eyes, where wrinkles were taking over, and tears were swelling. She continued.

 

“My father used to love Beckett.” She was the thumbing through the pages of the book. He decided to let her have her moment. 

 

“But he died and no one was here to care for this library.” She opened the book to one of the yellowing pages. 

 

“‘Where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on…’ fitting isn’t it, the last line of this book…” She was silent for a few moments after, reading the page, or perhaps rereading the quote. But then the curfew bell rang, followed by her promptly shutting the cover and looking at Ashton. Smiling. 

 

“Get to bed before anyone asks where you were off too. The Overseer sure does love his rules.” He nodded and left. 

 

This became a ritual. He would borrow the books supposed to be left in the library, and she would write the title of a text book next to his name in the log sheet. He would take them home, read between his classes, and any time he had to read. Then when he came in to perform his duties, he would return the book just before the curfew bell would toll.   
There would be occasions when she would read the books he chose from the shelves. He loved these days, loved the way she would voice the characters in the books he chose, and the way she always seemed to be so absorbed, that the two of them hardly even existed. It was fun and he thought that in some way, he had found freedom in the pages of these stories. 

Of course none of this went unnoticed by his father. He was a vastly intelligent man, and always seemed to know the slightest changes his son took. Ashton didn’t pay his father much mind, just ignored him when he inquired, and the secret silent behind his lips. This was his. Not his father's.

 

He started spending his lunches in the clinic with his dad. It had minimized his time in the library, but he found ways back. It was small at first, taking just a few more minutes to read, after the curfew bell had rung, or leaving his bed a few minutes too early, and cutting into the time he should have spent in his classes. They went unnoticed and the old woman, never said anything, but as time went on, and minutes turned hours, and waiting became sneaking out. He found that he liked the privacy of the night better than the publicity in the day. 

The Old Woman noticed. And he had learned to expect that from her. And he trusted her, sometimes more than his own father. So he wasn’t subtle and made it quite clear what he did when everyone else was sleeping, and she made clear that her support was with him and the books. 

He began to fall asleep during these sessions, the Pip-boy light doing only so much, to keep him from dozing off. One moment he would be someone above ground, on some larger than life adventure, and the next, he would be waking, to his face, plastered against the pages of a book, and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. Those nights he hated, mostly because his neck always aches when he would get up, but there was also the fact that he had to pretend that he had gotten up earlier than his father. He hated lying to him. 

But then he woke up on one of the libraries couches, a blanket draped over him. 

He only asked the Old Woman about it once, and she had responded simply. 

 

“My daughter used to fall asleep like you.” He hadn’t known she’d had a daughter. “She was like you when she was a girl.”

 

“My dad sometimes falls asleep in the clinic, but I guess it’s not really the same.” She had laughed at that. 

 

For a while, he had wanted to give her the privacy to have her secrets to herself, her family and thoughts, and the people he couldn’t associate her with. She had secrets and he was curious. There was only a matter of time before he decided that he needed to find answers. 

 

“You said you like Beckett.” He thought it might work.

 

“He always interested me.” They were sorting through the returned books, large piles had erected since the science fair had ended. With students returning books in troves, and they had their work cut out for them. More than just reading Beckett. 

 

“You also said he was banned.” He took the ticket out of one of the books, ripped it. 

 

“Yes. I was… Disappointed,” She took the book from him, and calmly put tape where he had broken the page. 

 

“I’m sorry,” 

 

“No, it’s nothing.” She put the book where the rest of them were laid. 

 

“How are they still here?” 

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Beckett.”

 

“Oh.” She grabbed another book with another ticket and started again. “That’s simple, the Overseer wanted to destroy certain books, but back then a lot of people loved them, so a lot of people saved them. Now that’s not so true, that’s why you are so interesting, you spend your time in here with fiction, rather than studying, or even with the other children.”

That was vault history. Not something he had heard of before, though he guessed the Overseer wouldn’t want that information in the history books and had erased it. It was interesting but not what he was looking for. 

 

“Did you save any?”

 

“As many as I could,” She picked up one of the books on the floor, one of the ones he had read. She continued. 

“My mother was in charge of the vault’s library at the time. I was just a girl at that point, and my mother was absolutely devoted to the Overseer. But I loved the stories, and I wasn’t the only one. People had already been caught trying to hide the books, they would have gotten away, if my mother hadn’t been keeping track of all of the books she had in the library. So one night when she had fallen asleep I snuck to the library and changed the files so one copy of all the books being burned, could be stolen, without anyone finding out.

 

“The next day I told the people who I knew opposed the policy, and gave them a list. I said, that it was their choice if they acted, but even if they decided to leave every book to burn, I would take one.” She got up as she said this, walked to her desk, and shuffled through some of the files, before grabbing a book. 

She walked back over to Ashton, handing him the book, and sitting where she had been before. 

 

“Our Endless Numbered Days,” He read the title out as he took the book from her hands. It was worn, more so than the others, he had seen in this library, stains littered the cover, and though he could tell that some of the pages, were loose, they were held together with bobby pins. 

 

“Yes, it was a lovely book. My great-grandfather had brought it to the vault when he was young.”

 

“You like it.”

 

“I love it. My mother knew I had it, but she knew my great-grandfather, and I believe that she wanted the book to be saved to. For all her flaws she wasn’t a bad person.”  
He down at the book, tracing his fingers over the cover, it was a crude drawing of a girl, and yet somehow it seemed to hold secrets that he wanted to discover, that he wanted to learn, a place that held pain and happiness, and emotions, and humanity. He found the cover beautiful. 

He opened the book to the cover page, where he found fading pen marks, writing names and messages, meant for others beside himself, flipped to the first page, flipped to the second, and the third, and the fourth. 

He looked up at the Old Woman, who was still staring at the book in his hands. 

 

“You should have it.”

 

“I couldn’t give to your daughter.”

 

“My daughter?” 

 

“You said you have one, remember.” She thought for a moment. Shook her head.

 

“I had a daughter.” He looked away, down to the book. 

 

“I’m sorry.” 

 

“It’s not your fault.”

 

He had nothing to say after that. Maybe taking this book would help her. Give her closure. He couldn’t think of it as his. He didn’t even know the Old Woman’s name, but he wanted to help people. Help this woman, who needed help. 

He closed the book, held it delicately, looked up at her and said. 

 

“Thank you.” 

 

He finished reading the book in one night, with tears staining his pillow. He didn’t let them get on the book, instead, let them stain his pillow. Then, once he had finished reading the last chapter a couple of times, tucked it snug in an empty drawer, his father said was for him.

It must have been two or three in the morning, because of how quiet the halls were. His dad hadn’t got back from the clinic, an emergency operation he had said, and he was left staring at the blank ceiling listening to the last line of the book replaying in his head. 

He had wanted to see his dad. Not because of anything in the book, but because his dad was always in the clinic on another operation. Always learning. Always helping.   
Ashton wanted help too. 

 

He waited, until four, then five, then six, then the bell rang and he decided he was done with waiting and slept the entire day. 

 

He started sleeping earlier, so he could wake earlier. He had avoided the library for the weekend he was off, letting it fester, and trying to forget the guilt at having the book the Old Woman's daughter should have had. But he found that staying away was worse than going. So he woke, at three, and snuck past the guards. 

It was surprisingly easy to reach the library so early in the morning, and the guards seemed to be almost half asleep themselves. 

The hallways were dead, and the lights were almost all off. The trip felt longer than any he had taken in the day, and though he had intimate knowledge of how to get to the library, everything felt wrong. But he made it, and with the library being settled in its own little corner of the vault, none of the guards noticed when he opened the library's door.   
It was different in the night, the books didn’t have the homely glow that they did in the day, they looked damaged and every minute imperfection seemed to be distorted by the shadows in the dim lighting. It was dark, and with nothing but his pip-boy, it seemed that everything was wrong. 

He knew that the Old woman should have been here, she had been here before at this time, when he had forgotten to go back home, and she was always here when he got there not even an hour after. But yet all he saw was the lifelessness of the library after hours, and all he felt like nothing but a petty burglar.

He didn’t use his pip-boy light, even though the darkness was almost consuming, and he didn’t call out, because the silence was so delicate. Instead, he used the shelves to guide him throughout the library, so that maybe he could find the old woman. 

Eventually, he lost track of time, and he had noticed the lights beginning to illuminate. After a few minutes, he could see without having to squint his eyes, and after half an hour, he could see as well as he could during the daytime hours. 

He went to look by the Old Woman's desk. If not to find her than to wait for her, on the day she showed up late. 

He was almost relieved when he saw her, peaceful, laying in the same position he had been, the first time she had caught him here. She was smiling, and drooling over a book he had read a million times. He had never seen her sleeping and noticed how quiet she was when she was asleep. He couldn’t even hear her breath.

He approached her, and with doing his best to be as gentle as he could, he took her, and laid her on the couch she had laid him. He sat next to her, staring at the ceiling, and listening, to how quiet everything around them was. He could hear his breathing, but nothing else. 

Then he held his breath. Counting beats. One. Two. Three Four. Silence. One. Two. Three. Four. Silence. His stomach dropped. He didn’t hear anything. Just his breathing. Not hers. His. 

He looked down at the Old Woman and now saw that her chest was still. He put two of his fingers, against her wrinkled neck, and pressed as firmly as he had learned from his dad. 

 

One second. Nothing. 

 

Two seconds. Nothing. 

 

Three seconds. Nothing. 

 

He rose, from the sofa. He would leave her to her peace. And looked over to the desk where she had sat. On it was a photo, of girl who he had never seen before, with tear marks erasing the ink.

**Author's Note:**

> I found that Becketts whole thing kinda really fits the vaults. Also I just like Our Endless Numbered Days.


End file.
